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6 million people.... Those statistics are blown way out of proportion. Besides, 6 million is only 2% of the population of the US.... There's nothing that can be done about it. When people lose their stations they will complain and then they will buy converter boxes. The solution here is to let the issue fix itself.

I believe the figure is 6 million households or about 6%. (rough math.)

But some GOP leaders like Joe Barton of Texas and Cliff Stearns of Florida write Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi with their own proposal for an alternative – which they say parallels what Capitol Hill leaders worked on before the Obama Administration threw its own recommendation into the process. The Senate passed a delay bill – unanimously – but the House today failed to approve the same bill by at least a two-thirds majority. The vote was 258 to 168. Some opponents were worried about confusion among the millions of Americans who still take their television signals off the air, and haven’t yet bought a DTV converter or a compatible new TV set. The FCC is now talking about a massive program of public service announcements, which will likely include radio, to get the word about the February 17 DTV switchover from analog to digital.

In some places it is true that the stations will broadcast on more power in the future. (I won't give a date at this point.)

The key is if they are causing interference to existing analog stations. If they might be, the are likely at reduced power. Or if they are going to shift to another frequency, they might be.

But in areas with no interference, a station that isn't shifting is likely at full power now.

Cheers,Tom

Actually some stations are broadcasting analog and digital from the same tower with digital signal at a lower power. This is because there can be only be so much effective radiated power from the antenna per FCC regulations. Once the Analog shuts off then they can increase the power to the digital signal.

EDIT: Also, the height of the antenna determines how much power is allowed to be used...the higher the antenna the lower the ERP - effective radiated power around the base of the tower.

"Biological effects can result from exposure to RF energy. Biological effects that result from heating of tissue by RF energy are often referred to as "thermal" effects. It has been known for many years that exposure to very high levels of RF radiation can be harmful due to the ability of RF energy to heat biological tissue rapidly. This is the principle by which microwave ovens cook food."

AN OLD GEEZER WHO REMEMBERS THE DUMONT TELEVISION NETWORK AND IT'S TOP RATED "CAPTAIN VIDEO AND HIS VIDEO RANGERS", TV NEWS ANCHORMEN WEARING HATS DURING THE NEWSCAST, ONLY 180 SECONDS OF COMMERICALS EACH HALF HOUR, 3 STATIONS ON THE AIR WITH THEIR TEST PATTERNS AIRED FROM 2 TO 3PM, PROGRAMMING FROM 3PM TO 11:30 AND SIGNING OFF AT 11:30PM. HOW COULD I FORGET THE SINGLE FRAME VERTICAL ROLL WHEN THE STATIONS SWITCHED FROM NETWORK TO LOCAL OR LOCAL TO NETWORK AND THE TIME TONE ON THE HOUR.

But some GOP leaders like Joe Barton of Texas and Cliff Stearns of Florida write Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi with their own proposal for an alternative – which they say parallels what Capitol Hill leaders worked on before the Obama Administration threw its own recommendation into the process. The Senate passed a delay bill – unanimously – but the House today failed to approve the same bill by at least a two-thirds majority. The vote was 258 to 168. Some opponents were worried about confusion among the millions of Americans who still take their television signals off the air, and haven’t yet bought a DTV converter or a compatible new TV set. The FCC is now talking about a massive program of public service announcements, which will likely include radio, to get the word about the February 17 DTV switchover from analog to digital.

I just don't think this is going to happen. While Swanni is right that the majority party in congress wouldn't want to hand their president a defeat, there's a more powerful motivator - self-preservation. I just think it would look really ridiculous, and wasteful, to see members of Congress debate something like this. It would just LOOK politically motivated to have a debate 2 weeks before the transition was set to happen. I think it would make those pushing for this look, frankly, politically motivated. I just don't see how having that debate makes them look good on this. Get a couple republicans up there pointing out the obvious flaws in this bill (the fact that it leaves stations on their own to decide whether to shut off their analogs on the 17th or not... the fact that part of the spectrum has already been sold off... the cost to TV stations for maintaining two different feeds) and the public starts wondering why in the world Congress would waste time on something like this at this point. Again, I'm not trying to get political about this - but this is a political issue. Whether this bill is doable or not is really not the point. Swanni's right in that it IS doable. Politically, though, it's not viable.

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?""That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat."I don’t much care where--" said Alice."Then it doesn’t matter which way you go," said the Cat."--so long as I get SOMEWHERE," Alice added as an explanation."Oh, you’re sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."

Something that the coupon advocates may not have considered: the darn things expire. Many early coupon grabbers had no desirable options and they aren't eligible under the current plan to get new coupons.

Something that the coupon advocates may not have considered: the darn things expire. Many early coupon grabbers had no desirable options and they aren't eligible under the current plan to get new coupons.

That's what happened to me, i got the coupons but there weren't any boxes available in my area that were eligible.

Something that the coupon advocates may not have considered: the darn things expire. Many early coupon grabbers had no desirable options and they aren't eligible under the current plan to get new coupons.

Or perhaps some folks simply got the coupons because the could and then realized (or decided) to not use them.

What I found interesting was that the coupons could ONLY be used for the converter boxes, and could NOT be applied to a purchase of a TV with a ATSC tuner. Of course, the electronics retailers are more interested in selling you a new TV than a converter box.

"In an effort to increase your cable and satellite bills beyond the point of affordability and to further pad the pockets of our executives..."Check out my list of links.

Or perhaps some folks simply got the coupons because the could and then realized (or decided) to not use them.

I ordered two of them even though I personally knew I wouldn't need either. I then checked the setups of everyone of my technically challenged family and friends and figured out one of my brothers needed one. I used that one to get him squared away and the other expired as I saw no need to have a converter box setting around collecting dust.

BTW - there has been an ample supply of converters available around here for many months.

...My question is since the program is out of money for the coupons, what happened to all of the unredeemed/expired coupons? Where did that money disappear to? Maybe the "dtv transition dept" needs a bailout:lol:

The fund is not out of money. If all the currently valid coupons are redeemed it runs out of money. A part of the problem has been the delay between expiration and time to redeem the coupon (you must buy before the coupon expires and then there is some additional time before the coupon gets recorded as redeemed). Until that time limit is reached they don't release the funds for new coupons for those in the waiting queue.

I, for one, don't want to see them delay the transition. If they really feel they must they could pass some additional contingency funding to allow the release of more coupons.

The FCC has requested that the ARRL (ham radio association) nationally encourage its local clubs to hold programs on the transition. Our club did - the local papers failed to pick up the press release so we got no public attending (just us hams). It was a good program with a demonstration of analog, a converter box, and an ATSC TV.

Then I got a request from the local FCC (via a ham radio club) for people to volunteer to assist the City of Philadelphia with converter box installations. The idea was to come down and be paired with a city volunteer (who has less technical training) to go to the homes of people and install the boxes they already own. Those residents would request the installation via the 311 telephone system. I'm out of work so I agreed to volunteer for a day or two.

I got a call yesterday at noon from the Philly person. She wanted me to attend a training session at 1pm today, and then work 5 days a week doing 4 installations a day for a stipend of $100 per week. When I explained that I was only volunteering for one or two days total (and didn't care about that small amount of money), she wanted me to show up for training anyway. I live 20 miles away outside Trenton - $20 per day wouldn't even cover my parking in Philadelphia.

I sent an e-mail to the FCC employee who recruited me and he agreed that the time commitment was too much. So I'm not going to the training today. If they still want the help they can call back and we'll work out a one or two day schedule.

Or perhaps "If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else."

I believe that is where Rockefeller/Wexler are going. Somewhere else than they say they are going.

"The other teams could make trouble for us if they win." and"You wouldn't have won if we'd beaten you." are also good.

Good ones James, they all sound good to me.

AN OLD GEEZER WHO REMEMBERS THE DUMONT TELEVISION NETWORK AND IT'S TOP RATED "CAPTAIN VIDEO AND HIS VIDEO RANGERS", TV NEWS ANCHORMEN WEARING HATS DURING THE NEWSCAST, ONLY 180 SECONDS OF COMMERICALS EACH HALF HOUR, 3 STATIONS ON THE AIR WITH THEIR TEST PATTERNS AIRED FROM 2 TO 3PM, PROGRAMMING FROM 3PM TO 11:30 AND SIGNING OFF AT 11:30PM. HOW COULD I FORGET THE SINGLE FRAME VERTICAL ROLL WHEN THE STATIONS SWITCHED FROM NETWORK TO LOCAL OR LOCAL TO NETWORK AND THE TIME TONE ON THE HOUR.

1. unscrew coax from back of tv2. screw coax into DTV box input3. take new coax, screw one end into tv (where old coax was)4. screw other end into output of DTV box.

perhaps the nanny state could require the dtv box to come with one of the coaxes already screwed on this would eliminate step 3.

now if you need antenna assistance, you need to see the broadcast stations who used the DTV transition as an excuse to change from UHF to VHF or VHF to UHF.

Training is over, who do I see in the government to collect my fee for providing training?

That's kind of the point. My mom's not gonna know what "coax" is. And if there's more than one coaxial input on her TV she's not going to know where to put it. She's also equally clueless to what VHF and UHF are. Just wait until she starts scanning for channels (if she can get that far on her own). I'm already going to have to walk her through it when the frequency assignment changes happen.

I set her up so she's fine, but spouting off terms at people who are non-technical does nothing but confuse the situation for them.